Calming Anxiety | Guided Meditation, Sleep Hypnosis & Panic Attack Relief

The Sums That Came Right by E. Nesbit — A Calming Bedtime Story for Sleep & Insomnia | Books at Bedtime

 

Drift off to sleep with The Sums That Came Right by E. Nesbit, a gentle and funny Edwardian fairy tale read aloud by Martin Hewlett on Books at Bedtime, the sleep story series from Calming Anxiety.

 

Edwin can't see the point of lessons. Seeds turn into flowers and dinner stops you being hungry, but sums never lead to anything. Then one afternoon, with his head inside his school desk, he finds the Arithmetic Fairy glowing at the back of it, in a dress woven of integral calculus and trimmed with logarithms.

 

From that day on, every sum Edwin gets right comes true at home. A sum about white rabbits leaves 7,563 of them in the front garden. Apples fill the cellar, oranges climb the stairs, and elephants arrive. Then a sum about a leaking cistern turns the staircase into Niagara, and Edwin has to find a way to call the fairy back and ask her to undo her gift.

 

What follows is a tender ending about growing up, about what learning gives us and what it can't, and about a rose garden and the Love Fairy.

 

This classic bedtime story for adults is perfect for winding down, easing insomnia and letting a busy mind settle into deep, restful sleep. Calm narration, gentle humour and a soft, unhurried pace make it an ideal sleep audiobook for anyone who finds it hard to switch off at night.

 

If you enjoy E. Nesbit, the author of The Railway Children and Five Children and It, you'll find more of her short stories on Books at Bedtime, including The White Cat, The Related Muff, The Aunt and Amabel, JustNowLand, The Magician's Heart and The Twopenny Spell.

 

The Sums That Came Right was first published in Oswald Bastable and Others (1905). E. Nesbit (1858–1924) and this story are in the public domain.

 

Hosted by clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic Martin Hewlett.

 

📱 Listen to Books at Bedtime in the Anchored app, offline and with the screen off, so you can fall asleep without a bright phone in your hand:

 

iPhone: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anchored-panic-anxiety/id6785035669

 

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.martinhewlett.anchored

 

🧡 For Martin's calming tips, visit: https://calminganxiety.org/calm

 

Sleep well, my friend. And in everything, be kind.

 

 

Rate & Review: Leave a 5-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to help us reach more listeners!

 

YouTube: Watch all episodes at https://www.youtube.com/c/calminganxiety?sub_confirmation=1

 

Social Media Support: For younger listeners struggling with social media stress, visit https://www.icanhelp.net/

 

Music: All music by Chris Collins

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/calming-anxiety-guided-meditation-sleep-hypnosis-panic-attack-relief--4110266/support.

Ready for More Calm?Thank you for listening to the Calming Anxiety Podcast, featuring guided meditation, mindfulness, and sleep hypnosis sessions with Martin Hewlett. Our mission is to provide you with proven tools for anxiety relief, stress reduction, and a path toward deep relaxation. Use this episode anytime you need to calm your mind and feel more at ease.

Everyone Else Seems Further Ahead — Calm for Doomscrolling, Comparison & Social Media Anxiety | Vagus Nerve Breathing

 

Your thumb knows the way, doesn't it — down and down and down again. Nothing has happened to you. Nobody has said an unkind word. And yet your chest is tight, your jaw is set, and there's a low hum that says you're behind. This 10 minute guided meditation is for comparison anxiety and doomscrolling — because you've been comparing your whole self, the mess and the doubt and the 3am worries, to someone else's edited highlights. That was never a fair fight. Hosted by clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic Martin Hewlett.

 

Today's breathwork is vagus nerve breathing, done with one hand resting flat and warm on the centre of your chest — because touch is part of the technique. In through the nose for four and feel your hand rise, then out softly through parted lips for seven. The long out breath and the gentle pressure together speak directly to the vagus nerve, and the message it carries back to the brain is simple: you are safe, you can stand down.

 

Comparison puts your body into a low-level threat state. A social threat, but a real one as far as your nervous system is concerned — and the breath is how we tell it the threat isn't there. Social media anxiety, phone anxiety, the feeling of falling behind, scrolling before bed: for the next 10 minutes, nothing is going to ask you for anything.

 

⏱️ Time Chapters

 

* 00:00 – Your thumb knows the way

* 00:50 – Welcome, and an app with no feed in it

* 01:43 – Today's breath: vagus nerve breathing, with a hand on the chest

* 02:30 – Why comparison is a real threat to your nervous system

* 02:45 – Guided practice: in for four, out for seven

* 04:37 – The warmth under your palm — that's you

* 04:56 – An aura of light, flowing down

* 05:41 – Today's gentle affirmations

* 07:22 – A second pass through the words

* 08:31 – Your three daily caring tips

* 09:17 – A gentle return and a stretch

* 09:41 – Anchored, sharing this episode, and be kind

 

🌿 Today's Gentle Affirmations

 

Visualise these words, repeat them, and feel them.

 

* My life is not a competition.

* I am not behind. I am simply on my own path, at my own pace.

* What I see on a screen is a moment. It is not a life.

* I release the anxiety that comes from comparing myself to others.

* Enough is not a number. Enough is a feeling, and I choose it right now.

* Comparison is a cloud that passes through me. It is not who I am.

* I am calm. I am content. I am here, in my own life.

 

💡 3 Daily Caring Tips

 

1. Unfollow what makes you smaller — Mute or unfollow three accounts today that leave you feeling smaller than before you opened them.

2. Phone out of the bedroom — Keep your phone out of the bedroom tonight, and use a proper alarm clock instead.

3. Ask what you came for — Before you unlock your phone, take one long slow out breath and ask yourself what you actually came for.

 

📱 Take Calming Anxiety With You Anywhere

 

If you'd like somewhere to go that doesn't want your attention — no feed, no red dots, no notifications shouting, no algorithm deciding what you need today — download Anchored on iOS. Access over 3,000 searchable, offline-ready audio sessions, sleep stories with Books at Bedtime, and built-in nightlight features for the small hours. You decide, then you close it, and then you get on with your day. 👉 Download Anchored on the App Store Today: https://apps.apple.com

 

And if this one landed with you, please share it with someone whose thumb has been busy lately. Chances are they've been feeling behind too, and haven't said so. If you have 30 seconds, a rating or review on Apple Podcasts helps someone else find us today.

 

Your life is not happening on a screen. It's happening right now, right here. So in everything — every thought, word and action — be kind.

 

 

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Support the Show:

 

Ad-Free Listening: Enjoy Calming Anxiety without ads at https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/calming-anxiety--4110266/support

 

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Rate & Review: Leave a 5-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to help us reach more listeners!

 

YouTube: Watch all episodes at https://www.youtube.com/c/calminganxiety?sub_confirmation=1

 

Social Media Support: For younger listeners struggling with social media stress, visit https://www.icanhelp.net/

 

Music: All music by Chris Collins

Ready for More Calm?Thank you for listening to the Calming Anxiety Podcast, featuring guided meditation, mindfulness, and sleep hypnosis sessions with Martin Hewlett. Our mission is to provide you with proven tools for anxiety relief, stress reduction, and a path toward deep relaxation. Use this episode anytime you need to calm your mind and feel more at ease.

The Twopenny Spell by E. Nesbit — A Calming Bedtime Story for Sleep & Insomnia | Books at Bedtime

 

Drift off to sleep with this gentle bedtime story, a classic audiobook narrated aloud for insomnia relief and deep relaxation as part of Calming Anxiety's Books at Bedtime series. Tonight's sleep story is The Twopenny Spell by E. Nesbit, the much-loved author of The Railway Children. It's a funny, warm-hearted tale of a brother, a sister and one very poorly chosen magic spell. It was written in the early 1900s and is long in the public domain: Edith Nesbit (1858–1924) died more than a century ago.

 

For more calming audiobooks and sleep stories whenever you need them, download Anchored, the free companion app to Calming Anxiety, with offline-ready relaxation and Books at Bedtime sessions for any hour of the night.

Get it on the App Store at https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anchored-panic-anxiety/id6785035669 or on Google Play at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.martinhewlett.anchored.

 

In this soothing narrated short story, gentle, well-behaved Lucy has had enough of her brother Harry, especially after he buries her up to her waist among the gooseberry bushes. With twopence from Uncle Richard in her pocket, she finds a shop she has never noticed before: a flower-filled parlour belonging to Mr. Deloro Delara, Professor of White and Black Magic. The best spell twopence can buy will make her as strong as Harry, and Harry as weak as her. But by the next morning, nothing in their corner of Victorian Blackheath is quite the way it should be.

 

Witty, wise and full of Nesbit's sharp eye for how children really behave, this is a story about fairness, sibling squabbles and the one thing no spell can survive: a kiss and a heartfelt sorry.

 

If you can't sleep, lie awake at night with a racing mind, or simply love classic children's literature read aloud, let this calm, unhurried bedtime reading ease anxiety and carry you softly towards rest.

 

Hosted and narrated by clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic Martin Hewlett, as part of Calming Anxiety's Coffee Break for the Soul and Books at Bedtime story readings.

 

And in everything, my friend, be kind.

 

 

Support the Show:

 

Rate & Review: Leave a 5-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to help us reach more listeners!

 

YouTube: Watch all episodes at https://www.youtube.com/c/calminganxiety?sub_confirmation=1

 

Social Media Support: For younger listeners struggling with social media stress, visit https://www.icanhelp.net/

 

Music: All music by Chris Collins

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/calming-anxiety-guided-meditation-sleep-hypnosis-panic-attack-relief--4110266/support.

Ready for More Calm?Thank you for listening to the Calming Anxiety Podcast, featuring guided meditation, mindfulness, and sleep hypnosis sessions with Martin Hewlett. Our mission is to provide you with proven tools for anxiety relief, stress reduction, and a path toward deep relaxation. Use this episode anytime you need to calm your mind and feel more at ease.

Anxious at Work and Telling Everyone You're Fine — Calm for Workplace Anxiety, Pressure & Deadlines | Physiological Sigh

 

Anxious at work and telling everyone you're fine? This 10 minute guided meditation is for workplace anxiety — the particular kind of tired that has nothing to do with sleep. The tired of holding yourself together from the moment you reach for your phone to the moment you close the laptop and realise your shoulders have been up around your ears for nine hours, and nobody at work saw a thing. Hosted by clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic Martin Hewlett.

 

Today's breathwork is the physiological sigh, chosen deliberately because of all the breathing techniques taught on this show, this is the one you can use at work without a single person noticing. No counting to sixteen. No sitting cross-legged on the floor beside the printer. Two breaths in through the nose, one long slow breath out through the mouth — and your heart rate settles. That is not your imagination, that's your vagus nerve doing precisely the job it was built for.

 

Work stress, deadline pressure, the inbox that never empties, replaying the thing you said in the meeting, the anxiety of being perfect — for the next ten minutes you have nothing to achieve and nothing to fix. You don't need a cushion or a candle or a quiet room. If you're still sitting at your desk, that's perfectly all right. You just need your breath.

 

⏱️ Time Chapters

 

* 00:00 – The tired that has nothing to do with sleep

* 01:14 – Welcome — ten minutes with nothing to achieve

* 02:12 – Today's breath: the physiological sigh, and why it works at your desk

* 02:43 – Guided practice: double breath in, long breath out

* 04:39 – Your vagus nerve, doing the job it was built for

* 05:14 – When the day comes wandering back in

* 05:44 – Today's gentle affirmations

* 07:14 – Deeper relaxation and the pause between breaths

* 08:07 – Your three daily caring tips

* 08:58 – A gentle return and a stretch

* 09:37 – Anchored, sharing this episode, and be kind

 

🌿 Today's Gentle Affirmations

 

Visualise these words in your thoughts, and whisper them in your mind.

 

* I am calm at work, even when the work is not calm.

* My work anxiety is a feeling. It is not a fact.

* I can breathe through stress at work, and my nervous system knows how.

* I do not have to be perfect to be good at what I do.

* I am allowed to work at a human pace.

* My worth is not my output.

* I am safe. I am here. There is nothing to fear right now.

 

💡 3 Daily Caring Tips

 

1. One sigh before the first meeting — Before the first meeting today, take one single physiological sigh at your desk. Nobody will see it, and your nervous system will thank you for it.

2. Set one boundary you can keep — Set one boundary that you can actually keep, such as no email for the first twenty minutes after you wake up.

3. Leave the screen at lunch — Make a proper break away from your screen at lunchtime, even if it's only ten minutes standing outside in the air.

 

📱 Take Calming Anxiety With You Anywhere

 

If today helped, come and find all of these sessions — over 3,000 of them — inside Anchored. Download Anchored on iOS. Access over 3,000 searchable, offline-ready audio sessions, sleep stories with Books at Bedtime, and built-in nightlight features for the small hours. Do the check-in tonight; it takes thirty seconds, and in a fortnight you'll know your own pattern better than any app ever could. 👉 Download Anchored on the App Store Today: https://apps.apple.com

 

And if you know someone who is holding it all together at work and telling everybody they're fine, please send them this episode. That's how this show has reached over 10 million downloads — no advertising, no huge corporation or budget, just people like you quietly passing it on. If you have 30 seconds, a rating or review on Apple Podcasts helps someone else find us today.

 

You did that. Not me. Look after yourself today, and in everything, in every thought, word and deed — be kind.

 

 

👉 Click to subscribe and unlock ad-free episodes now!

 

Support the Show:

 

Ad-Free Listening: Enjoy Calming Anxiety without ads at https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/calming-anxiety--4110266/support

 

Buy Me a Coffee: Support hosting costs at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/calminganxiety

 

Newsletter: Subscribe on Substack at https://calminganxietypodcast.substack.com/?r=6zm0sc&utm_campaign=pub-share-checklist

 

Rate & Review: Leave a 5-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to help us reach more listeners!

 

YouTube: Watch all episodes at https://www.youtube.com/c/calminganxiety?sub_confirmation=1

 

Social Media Support: For younger listeners struggling with social media stress, visit https://www.icanhelp.net/

 

Music: All music by Chris Collins

Ready for More Calm?Thank you for listening to the Calming Anxiety Podcast, featuring guided meditation, mindfulness, and sleep hypnosis sessions with Martin Hewlett. Our mission is to provide you with proven tools for anxiety relief, stress reduction, and a path toward deep relaxation. Use this episode anytime you need to calm your mind and feel more at ease.

The Magician's Heart by E. Nesbit — A Calming Bedtime Story for Sleep & Insomnia | Books at Bedtime

 

Drift off to sleep with this gentle bedtime story, a classic audiobook narrated aloud for insomnia relief and deep relaxation as part of Calming Anxiety's Books at Bedtime series. Tonight's sleep story is The Magician's Heart by E. Nesbit, the much-loved author of The Railway Children. It's a witty, warm-hearted fairy tale of christening curses, a magic kiss saved for twenty years, and a wicked magician who was once the dearest little boy in a plaid frock. It's the final story in her 1912 collection The Magic World and is long in the public domain: Edith Nesbit (1858–1924) died more than a century ago.

 

For more calming audiobooks and sleep stories whenever you need them, download Anchored, the free companion app to Calming Anxiety, with offline-ready relaxation and Books at Bedtime sessions for any hour of the night. Get it on the App Store at https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anchored-panic-anxiety/id6785035669 or on Google Play at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.martinhewlett.anchored.

 

In this soothing narrated short story, a wicked magician who is never invited to royal christenings decides to go anyway. At one he curses little Prince Fortunatus to be the stupidest prince in the world. At the next he makes baby Princess Aura the ugliest princess in the world. But a white witch catches him before he can vanish, and gives the princess a kiss to keep until she needs it. Twenty years later, a disguised princess, a lost prince now working as a baker's boy, and the magician's devoted old nurse all arrive at his tower on the very same morning.

 

Funny, tender and full of Nesbit's sparkle, this is a story about kindness, second chances and the magic of a well-kept kiss. It ends, as all the best fairy tales should, with love, a wedding and a shower of white roses.

 

If you can't sleep, lie awake at night with a racing mind, or simply love classic children's literature read aloud, let this calm, unhurried bedtime reading ease anxiety and carry you softly towards rest.

 

Hosted and narrated by clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic Martin Hewlett, as part of Calming Anxiety's Coffee Break for the Soul and Books at Bedtime story readings.

 

And in everything, my friend, be kind.

 

 

Support the Show:

 

Rate & Review: Leave a 5-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to help us reach more listeners!

 

YouTube: Watch all episodes at https://www.youtube.com/c/calminganxiety?sub_confirmation=1

 

Social Media Support: For younger listeners struggling with social media stress, visit https://www.icanhelp.net/

 

Music: All music by Chris Collins

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/calming-anxiety-guided-meditation-sleep-hypnosis-panic-attack-relief--4110266/support.

Ready for More Calm?Thank you for listening to the Calming Anxiety Podcast, featuring guided meditation, mindfulness, and sleep hypnosis sessions with Martin Hewlett. Our mission is to provide you with proven tools for anxiety relief, stress reduction, and a path toward deep relaxation. Use this episode anytime you need to calm your mind and feel more at ease.